


On Sunrises

by The_Eclectic_Bookworm



Category: Buffy the Vampire Slayer
Genre: F/M
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2016-07-14
Updated: 2016-07-14
Packaged: 2018-07-23 22:43:16
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,691
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/7482774
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/The_Eclectic_Bookworm/pseuds/The_Eclectic_Bookworm
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>But in the early morning, looking at the sunrise, he remembered again. He was a Watcher. He would keep others from dying. He would remind Buffy that her mission in life was to do the same. <br/>And back then, it was truly as simple as that.</p><p>Then he met Jenny Calendar.</p>
            </blockquote>





	On Sunrises

At the beginning of Giles’s time in Sunnydale, he’d go to bed at one in the morning and be ready for work four hours later. Being a Watcher meant that one couldn’t afford to rest as much as one might if not encumbered with a sacred calling. He was used to only a few hours of sleep. Thrived on it, even.

He loved the way the sunrise looked in the morning, hues of orange and red that he wished he had artistic talent enough to capture. It touched something in him, looking up at that blend of color. Every sunrise was different, if only ever so slightly.

He wanted to protect this world and the people in it who could still look up at the sunrise without fear of turning to dust. That was what he was meant to do. There was a strange comfort in knowing one’s purpose in life.

There were problems, yes. Buffy, who had become much more than just an obligation. Her friends, who had grown past being liabilities. The job was supposed to come before them, he knew, but it was becoming more and more difficult to remember that.

But in the early morning, looking at the sunrise, he remembered again. He was a Watcher. He would keep others from dying. He would remind Buffy that her mission in life was to do the same.

And back then, it was truly as simple as that.

* * *

 

Then he met Jenny Calendar.

* * *

The first time Jenny—Ms. Calendar, back then—stayed over at his apartment was actually a bit of an accident. It was about a week after the whole Moloch debacle, and it had just so happened that they had both stayed late at the school, so she’d offered to drive him home. Then there was an incident with a vampire and some windshield wipers and both of them were rather shaken, so he had invited her to his apartment for some tea. “Yeah,” she’d said, and given him a wobbly smile. “Yeah, okay.”

So now he was in the kitchen, making tea, and Ms. Calendar was sitting on his couch and reading one of his demonology volumes. What unnerved him significantly more than the fact that she was touching one of his most valuable books was the fact that he didn’t actually mind all that much.

He was exhausted, which was unlike him at this hour. But the vampire had fallen onto the windshield out of nowhere and Ms. Calendar had been driving and her terrified scream hadn’t been something he’d ever wanted to hear.

“A tree,” said Ms. Calendar from the living room. She still didn’t sound quite like herself.

“Hmm?” Giles placed the kettle on the tea tray along with two mugs.

“I was—driving by a tree.” Ms. Calendar shut the book, carefully placing it back on the shelf. Giles was touched by her respect for it. “I think he must have been waiting in the tree for some kind of drive-by victim.” She laughed unsteadily. “But you took care of him.”

“And you helped,” Giles added, surprised that she wasn’t taking any credit.

“I turned on the windshield wipers,” said Ms. Calendar, not without bitterness.

“And he fell off the car because of it, and I got out and staked him, which I most certainly would not have been able to do had he been on the windshield of the car,” Giles pointed out.

There was a silence from the living room, and then, dubiously but with a note of gratefulness, “Sure.”

Giles came in with the tea and set it gently down on the coffee table in front of her, picking up the kettle and pouring her a cup. “I realize you like coffee,” he began hesitantly, but Ms. Calendar cut him off.

“No, no, Rupert, this is—” She smiled up at him, taking the mug. “Thank you,” she said sincerely, taking a sip.

Giles felt a sudden flutter of—something. Relief, he decided, because she was safe. But then her eyes met his over the rim of the mug, a warm chocolate color unlike anything he’d seen in a sunset, and he began to wonder. “If you’d like, you can stay here for the night,” he offered, right before his worries about overstepping his boundaries caught up with him.

She put down the mug, eyes wide. “I wouldn’t want to intrude,” Ms. Calendar said with the reluctant air of someone trying their best to do the right thing. She glanced outside with what seemed to Giles no small amount of nervousness at the prospect of leaving the safety of his house.

“It seems considerably safer than my driving you home,” Giles suggested. Then, concerned that his proposition might be taken the wrong way, “O-of course, I wasn’t suggesting that—that is—I’ll be a gentleman.”

Ms. Calendar raised an eyebrow. “I wasn’t worried about that part,” she said, smiling slightly. “Should I sleep on the couch? Or do you have a spare bedroom?”

“I’ve got a spare bedroom,” said Giles, who didn’t.

He gave her his bedroom. He had a feeling she knew what he was up to, but she was too tired to make the necessary protestations about not wanting to take his bed.

Giles had been planning to stay up late that night looking into some demons he hadn’t read up on in as much detail as he would have liked, but he could hear Ms. Calendar’s soft snoring from upstairs and it proved to be distracting. Strangely, as distractions went, this one wasn’t bothersome. It was more of the sort where he couldn’t quite concentrate on reading because he knew that she was there.

He turned out the lights and lay down on the couch. She was here, and alive, and he took a surprising amount of comfort in that.

* * *

He woke up because of the sunlight streaming through gaps in the curtains. For a moment, he didn’t quite understand what was going on; usually he was up before the sun, not to mention that usually he woke up comfortable and in his own bed. But then the events of the previous night came back to Giles, and he sat up slowly, fumbling for his glasses on the coffee table. Catching a glimpse of the clock, he winced; two minutes before first period started, and it didn’t seem as though Ms. Calendar was awake.

He went upstairs, slowly, so as not to startle her. Ms. Calendar was asleep on the bed, lying on her side and on top of the bedcovers. He’d yet to meet anyone who didn’t bother getting under the covers. The idea seemed uncomfortable to him, but perhaps it was a technopagan thing. Or an exhausted-computer-science-teacher thing. She seemed to be deeply asleep, so he carefully walked over to one side of the bed to wake her.

“Ms. Calendar,” he murmured, tentatively touching her shoulder. Although she didn’t wake up, she made a soft noise that reminded him a bit of a cat and leaned into his touch, eyelashes fluttering. And there was that _something_ again.

“Jenny,” he said quietly, using her name for the first time. He knew it, of course; it had just seemed much too informal to use it. But she was asleep in his bed, so he figured he could throw formality out the window for a brief interval.

Ms. Calendar stirred, slowly opening her eyes. “Oh,” she said drowsily. “Hi.”

“I, ah, may have overslept,” said Giles apologetically. “Or I would have woken you earlier.”

“It’s okay.” Ms. Calendar rolled onto her back. “I’ve got a free period first thing in the morning. You do too, right?”

“We librarians do happen to have flexible schedules,” Giles replied, relieved.

Ms. Calendar smiled slowly, an open-mouthed grin that made her nose wrinkle. She sat up, running a hand through her hair, and winced. “I may need a few minutes to freshen up,” she said. “I hope you don’t mind my lingering.”

“I’ll drive you to school,” said Giles.

“Rupert, you don’t have to—”

“I know.” Hesitantly, Giles smiled at her. “You’re feeling better, then?”

“This is going to sound ridiculous,” said Ms. Calendar, “but things start feeling a little better when I wake up and the sun’s out.” She got up off the bed, moving carefully past Giles to hurry down the stairs.

Her words stuck with him. He went to bed a bit earlier sometimes, after that. Not when he couldn’t afford to, of course; there were still nights when staying up and researching was paramount to the safety of the town. But there wasn’t as much extra researching of possible demons that might attack Sunnydale in the future. He’d turn off the lights at midnight and wake up just a bit after the sunrise. He missed seeing it, but strangely, not as much as he’d thought he might.

Besides, if he got to school a bit late, Ms. Calendar would be there before him, and he could stop by her classroom while heading to the library. Her hair caught the morning sunlight, and for someone with such dark eyes, she seemed to exude light.

* * *

 

The second time Jenny—and by that point she was no one but Jenny to him—stayed over at his apartment was significantly less of an accident, and under much happier circumstances. They’d been out on a picnic date a few days after what Jenny had apologetically nicknamed the “Crossbow Incident,” and he’d invited her home with implications considerably less chaste than tea.

It took them a few tries to open the door, this time, because Giles had been fumbling with the key and then Jenny had moved in between him and the door and kissed him hard, and he’d been much too distracted to pay attention to unlocking the door. But then, with a twist of her hand, Jenny had managed to turn the key, and the door had swung open.

This proved to be a bit of a problem, seeing as Jenny’s back had been pressed against the door. They both lost their balance, tumbling to the floor of the apartment.

Giles pulled away immediately, hurriedly helping Jenny up. “Are you all right?” he asked, a bit breathless, his hand moving up her arm to squeeze her shoulder.

“I’m fine,” Jenny replied, gaze flitting to his mouth. She leaned in and gave him a soft brush of a kiss, before pulling away to quietly inform him, “I think the door’s still open.”

“Hmm,” said Giles vaguely. The words took a few moments to register. “Door!” he repeated. “Right. Yes. Door.”

Jenny giggled as he turned around to close the door. He hadn’t heard that giggle until a few weeks into their relationship, and he’d yet to hear it when she was speaking to anyone but him. It was possibly one of his favorite sounds at the moment. Or at all.

Her hands slid around his waist from behind, her chin resting on his shoulder. “Hey,” she said quietly.

He turned around so that she was completely in his arms. There was something new in the way she was looking at him. “Hello,” he replied, tentatively, testing the waters.

“Rupert—” Jenny seemed to catch herself.

“Yes?” It was too soon to hope for something like this. She wasn’t a romantic like him. She wouldn’t have fallen in love so quickly, so absurdly, so wonderfully, especially not after what he’d done to her.

“I’ll tell you later,” said Jenny finally, and kissed him deeply.

She was soft against him, and there was comfort in the familiarity of her arms around him. He would wait.

* * *

There was a third time that Jenny stayed over, and a fourth time, and he began to lose count. Giles really did mean to start waking up early and researching matters of importance because now he was beginning to slip; on more than one occasion, he’d tasked Willow with some of the research.

But his firm work ethic was rather difficult to prioritize when there was someone (gorgeous, sarcastic, utterly lovable) snuggled in bed next to him. Jenny was a late sleeper, and he’d always wake up first with her in his arms, more often then not on top of the bedcovers. She said it was because she got warm easily.

She couldn’t always stay the night, of course. More often than not, however, after some sort of exhausting supernatural situation, Jenny would drive him home and he’d invite her in and they’d curl up together on his bed and fall asleep. On occasion, he’d drive _her_ home and the inverse would occur.

Only once when she was with him did he wake up with the sunrise, and the only thing he could think was that she looked breathtaking in the early-morning light. The reds and oranges looked better on her than they ever had in the sky.

* * *

He’d wish, later, that he’d valued the last time more.

Jenny woke up just before sunrise and just before him. It was the morning after Angelus, and she’d come to his house for researching and tea, and it had spiraled into them kissing desperately in the kitchen and stumbling up the stairs to bed, barely letting go of each other even to climb the stairs. Giles was fairly certain that the tea was cold by now.

It was unusual for her to wake up before him, but what with all the unusual things that had happened as of late, he didn’t think much of it. Stress, most likely.

“All right?” he asked gently, rolling over onto his side to face her.

Jenny was silent. Then, barely a whisper, “No.”

Giles was about to ask if she wanted to talk about it, but her jaw was set and he could almost see tears in her eyes. Whatever this was, it didn’t seem to be something he could fix with advice. He reached out and stroked her cheek, and she leaned into his touch.

They kissed, quietly.

“I’m sorry,” said Jenny, voice catching.

“Love,” Giles murmured, and pulled her fully into his arms. He didn’t quite know what was going on, but Jenny wasn’t the type to overshare. This alone was quite a display of emotion for her. “It’ll be all right.”

“It won’t.”

“It _will,_ ” said Giles with certainty. He sat up, tugging Jenny and the blankets up with him. “Look.”

She did. “Sunrise,” she said somewhat dismissively, blinking in the beginnings of early morning sunlight. “What’s your point?” There was a sharpness to her words, but she took his hand, their fingers interlocking.

“You’re still here to see it with me,” Giles said quietly. “It’ll be all right.”

It was a stupidly romantic thing to say, and he was expecting Jenny to make fun of it, because she’d never seemed the type to be easily romanced. But her head tipped towards him and she uttered a shuddering sigh before she moved back into his arms.

He would give her the key to his apartment roughly two hours later. Two seconds after that, Buffy would come into the classroom and make an accusation that would shed a new light on the last time.

* * *

(truthfully, though, it wasn’t the _last_ time, but we don’t talk about the last time jenny stayed over)

* * *

At the end of that year, Giles couldn’t sleep, and he always seemed to be awake in time for the sunrise.

It wasn’t the same anymore. The sunrise no longer reminded him of who he was and what he stood for. Jenny had shown him a part of himself that he hadn’t known existed, a softer part, one that wasn’t a Watcher and wasn’t a rebel and was still both at the same time. He’d found himself, for a moment.

It sounded melodramatic to say that the nightmares kept him awake, but even in dreams, he couldn’t forget the way she’d looked. She’d always napped on top of the bedcovers. For a moment, he’d truly thought she was asleep. He wanted that moment back.

Eventually, he would fall asleep and stay in bed late. He wouldn’t be an early riser anymore after that.


End file.
